Our members

	Martyn Coutts is an award-winning artist, researcher and educator. Martyn holds a postgraduate diploma in Animateuring (Theatre Making) from the Victorian College of the Arts (VCA). His creative projects have been shown extensively throughout Australia and internationally in Taiwan, China, Korea, Hong Kong, Singapore, New Zealand, Netherlands, UK, US and Canada. Martyn won the Dean's Award for Excellence for his Masters in Creative Industries from RMIT in 2021. Martyn’s research engages with digital dramaturgies, cultural policy, digital protest art and social movement studies. He won the Dean’s Award for Excellence for his Masters in Arts Management from RMIT in 2021. His Master's research explored cultural policy in Hong Kong and how it intersects with national identity and soft power. Martyn is Tutor in Production at the VCA (University of Melbourne) in Digital Media and Projection. He teaches into the Bachelor of Fine Arts (Production). In 2023, Martyn will have three papers published in edited volumes: Hong Kong Imaginary: Culture and Identity in the city-state, Framing Technologies in the Dramaturgies of Performance and The Unconformity: Culture-led regeneration in a regional setting.
	Chloe Ho is a doctoral candidate in Art History at the University of Melbourne and Digital Archive Researcher with Art and Australia. Her PhD project looks performance and installation art and other artistic, , social and political events in, from, or about Singapore from the late 1980s to the present in relation to the writing of global art history. Her broader research interests include performance art forms in the Asian context and artistic migration, particularly in relation to performance art and artists. She has been Graduate Fellow at the Centre of Visual Arts (CoVA), University of Melbourne (2018-present); Conference Administrator, AAANZ22; Advisory Committee for Currents (2020-2022); Committee member for the Asian Studies Association of Australia Conference 2020; Committee member of the UniMelb Art History Research Seminars (2020); Co-organiser of WIP Friday seminar series (2020), School of Culture and Communication, University of Melbourne. She has published in places such Southeast of Now and Live Art Development Agency.
	Chenglin Liang is a PhD candidate in Screen & Cultural Studies at the University of Melbourne. His research focuses on Chinese youth culture, cyber-nationalism, masculinities of low-status or lower-middle-class Chinese men, and the broader cultural production of Chinese online communities. His PhD project seeks to outline the pessimism and disenfranchised masculinities of lower-middle-class Chinese men over the past decade, and to explore their cultural and political influences. Prior to studying at Melbourne, he completed his BA and MA at Jinan University and Shanghai University respectively, and briefly served as literary editor in China.
	Xiaowei Liang is a PhD Candidate in the School of Culture and Communication at the University of Melbourne. Before doing her PhD, Xiaowei received a BA (Hons) degree with a specialisation in Media and Communications Studies at the University of Melbourne and a BA degree at Monash University. Her research interests include mediated cultures of beauty, femininities, and feminism(s) on Chinese digital platforms. Her PhD research project adopts digital ethnography, discourse analysis, and semi-structured interviews to explore how Chinese women navigate beauty norms and issues relating to cosmetic surgery on RED (XiaoHongShu), a popular e-commerce and lifestyle platform in China.
	Qing Tingting Liu is a Ph.D. candidate in the Sociology Department at SUNY Albany. She is also affiliated with the University of Melbourne for a Study Abroad Research Program (Summer 2023). Her research interests include migration and mobility, globalization, diaspora, race and youth. Her recent publication is about Chinese international students’ racialization experience in USA. She also wrote a book review about Chinese female migrants in Africa for International Migration Review.
	Ziying Meng is a PhD candidate at the School of Culture and Communication, University of Melbourne. Her thesis explores video creators’ cross-platform practices on Chinese and US-based social media services. Her research interests include digital platforms, creator culture, Chinese social media, digital ethnography and smart technologies.
	Ian Rafael Ramirez is a PhD candidate at the University of Melbourne where he is investigating the notion of the kanal (canal) in relation to the performances and worldmaking practices of the bakla (a local gender identity in the Philippines). He recently published his article on Manila queer nightlife in the Australasian Drama Studies Journal.
	Rong Wan obtained her MA in Linguistics and Applied Linguistics from Guangdong University of Foreign Studies (Guangzhou, China) in 2022 and is currently doing her PhD at Asia Institute in the University of Melbourne under the supervision of Prof. Claire Maree and A/Prof. Delia Lin. Her PhD program investigates beauty blogging phenomenon in contemporary China, delving into beauty bloggers’ multimodal beauty discourses on social media platforms, their life histories/ lived experiences, and online debates revolving around beauty/gender. Her research interest mainly lies in Gender and Women’s studies, Sociolinguistics, (Multimodal Media) Discourse Analysis, Chinese Studies, and Pragmatics.
	Haoyang Zhai is a PhD candidate at the School of Culture and Communication, University of Melbourne. Her doctoral project explores the intersection of spirituality and digital media, specifically focusing on Chinese social media platforms. She is also interested in investigating the impact of platform governance and Internet censorship on digital culture.
	Yahia Ma is a Ph.D. candidate at The University of Melbourne’s Asia Institute. His thesis focuses on the English translations of queer desires in Chinese-language literature. His articles and reviews have appeared in TranscUlturAl: A Journal of Cultural and Translation Studies, TSQ: Transgender Studies Quarterly, Melbourne Asia Review, Babel, The Mandarin, Taiwan Insight, Perspectives, Translation Studies, and elsewhere. Yahia’s translations can be found in Queer Taiwanese Literature: A reader (2021) and Queer Time: A Notebook of Taiwanese Tongzhi Literature (2021). He is a recipient of the National Library of Australia’s Asia Studies Grant (2023) and a recipient of the Library Fellowship offered by The Australian Centre on China in the World (2023). He is currently co-editing a volume on queer literature in the Sinosphere. Publications: Ma, Yahia. ‘Queering the English Translation of Male Same-Sex Desire in 1990s Chinese-Language Literature’, TranscUlturAl: A Journal of Cultural and Translation Studies vol 14 no. 1 (2022), pp. 37-53. Ma, Yahia. ‘How health authorities in Australia and China could describe Mpox in less stigmatising ways’, Melbourne Asia Review (Edition 13, 2023).
	Bin Wang is a PhD candidate at the School of Culture and Communication, University of Melbourne. His doctoral project seeks to explore gay nightlife in urban China. His research focuses on the intersectional experiences of gay Asian men, marginalised populations and their rights to urban spaces, the everyday life of sexual minorities and other issues that fall under the broader category of gender and queer studies. He obtained BA at Monash University and Master of Geography at the University of Melbourne. Bin Wang & Andrew Gorman-Murray (2023) International students, intersectionality and sense of belonging: a note on the experience of gay Chinese students in Australia, Australian Geographer, 54:2, 115-123, DOI: 10.1080/00049182.2023.2174652
	Fan Yang is a research fellow at the University of Melbourne node of ADM+S. Her work focuses on technologies and governance, digital ethics, innovative research methods, migration politics, and postcolonial technoscience. Her doctoral thesis, entitled ‘News Manufactories on WeChat’, provided one of the first insights into the internal operation of WeChat in Australia as a content production platform. She co-leads a project that maintains one of the biggest datasets from WeChat. She has worked with international NGOs and think tanks as an external analyst. Her work has been translated into multiple languages including Chinese, Japanese, Spanish, and French. Her research has been covered by Australian national and international media outlets.
	Dr. Wendi Li is a PhD graduate of the School of Culture and Communication at the University of Melbourne. Her PhD project explores how climate-concerned young individuals in Hong Kong and Melbourne perceive, communicate about, and construct their identities around climate change as a global crisis. Her research interests lie at the intersection of globalized public communication, climate change communication—especially youth climate activism—methodological cosmopolitanism, qualitative research, and more, within a comparative context across the Asia-Pacific region. Wendi has served as a Committee member of the 2020 Asian Studies Association of Australia (ASAA) Biennial Conference. She has also been elected as the Student and Early Career Representative for the Activism, Communication, and Social Justice (ACSJ) Interest Group within the International Communication Association (ICA) for the term 2023–2025.
	Patriot Mukmin is a PhD researcher at the Victorian College of Art, University of Melbourne. He also works as an artist and lecturer at the Faculty of Art and Design, Bandung Institute of Technology (FSRD ITB). His research focuses on the semiotic reading of visual signs, especially in works of art. In addition, he often borrows concepts in Semiotics to construct his art creations. The scope of his research includes social phenomena, history and its influence on the current practice of Indonesian art practices.
	Caitlin Hughes is PhD Candidate in Art History and Curatorship at the University of Melbourne. Her PhD research focuses on ideas of horizontality, interactivity and exchange in Indonesian spatial art practice 1998-now, framed by cross-cultural contexts intra-nationally (beyond the Java-Bali conversation) and internationally (in the ‘global contemporary’). Caitlin’s other interests include contemporary South/east Asian art, Australian art, public art, as well as themes of play, futures, the environment and urban aesthetics in art from across the Asia-Pacific region. She holds a Bachelor of Arts (Art Theory, Asian Art History) and a Bachelor of Art History and Curatorship (Honours, First Class) from the Australian National University.
	Zico Albaiquni delves into painting with a distinct perspective, drawing on art history to explore the essence of artistic expression and its purpose. His meticulously crafted compositions blend Indonesian history with contemporary cultural symbols, bathed in a vibrant palette. Central to his work are landscapes infused with elements from the Mooi Indië tradition, a European Romantic style prevalent in colonial-era Indonesian art. Albaiquni also finds inspiration in S Sudjojono's social realism, drawing parallels between the Indonesian modernist's critique of colonial portrayals and today's tourist art and advertising. While rooted in tradition, Albaiquni represents a new wave of Indonesian artists. He transcends postcolonial perspectives, reflecting on the traditional role of a pelukis (painter) in Indonesia, evoking a sense of community, ritual, and spirituality. Through this amalgamation of influences, Albaiquni examines how the Indonesian landscape and its people have been portrayed historically, finding his place, and that of Indonesian art, in today's globalized art scene.
	Arvin Jake A. Adovo is an MPhil candidate in Geography and Anthropology at the University of Melbourne. He is currently engaging with waste and waste picking in the Philippines and how waste pickers exercise agency and humanity as they live with waste. His research interest lies within the broader field of human geography-- actually, anything he finds interesting. He obtained his BSc in Geography at the University of the Philippines Diliman.
	Tyler Gleason is a PhD candidate in cultural studies at the University of Melbourne. His thesis explores the cultural production of HIV/AIDS in China from the early-1980s to the early-1990s. Tyler’s research interests focus on histories of HIV/AIDS and its effects in China and transnational contexts, using cultural studies, science and technology studies, and gender and sexuality approaches. Tyler holds a Bachelor of Arts (Honours) from the University of Melbourne.